Mar. 13, 2014

File/Bloomberg

Written by

Donovan Slack

Gannett Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The number of Wisconsinites who signed up for health insurance on the federal Obamacare exchange has grown by 75 percent since December but the amount is still far short of expectations, according to new data released Tuesday.

A total of 71,400 people from the Badger State had signed up by the end of February, up from 41,000 at the end of last year.

Analysts had predicted as many as 278,000 uninsured Wisconsinites would obtain coverage either through the exchange, Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program. With only three weeks to go until the March 31 deadline to sign up for coverage, it’s unlikely the administration will reach that target.

Nationally, some 4.2 million people have enrolled in coverage, a figure that also is falling short of enrollment forecasts.

Obama administration officials had predicted in September — before the glitch-ridden rollout of the websites — that 5.6 million would be enrolled by the end of February and that 7 million would be enrolled by the deadline.

Health and Human Services officials refused to say Tuesday if they still expected to meet that target, saying only that they expect a surge in signups in the next few weeks.

“I think projections are constantly changing,” Julie Bataille, spokeswoman for HHS’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “We think that we are on the right trajectory.”

Administration officials also declined to say how many of the enrollees were previously uninsured and how many had actually paid premiums and therefore secured coverage. They said they did not have enough complete data to report those numbers.

The number of people who sign up, particularly the number of uninsured, will be important to determining the effectiveness of President Obama’s signature law. But it is the demographics of the enrollees — age, gender, health — that will be critical to the viability of the marketplaces themselves, which depend on a critical mass of younger, healthier people signing up to offset the costs of coverage for older and less healthy individuals.

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So far, enrollment is skewing toward older Americans — only 25 percent of enrollees nationwide are between age 18 and 34. In Wisconsin that share is only 21 percent. Nationwide, 55 percent are females, who tend to have higher health care costs than men. In Wisconsin, 56 percent are female.

The nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation predicted that unless 40 percent of enrollees are between 18 and 34, premiums could go up for everyone. If the current trend of lower enrollment among young people continues, the foundation estimated that costs could outpace premium revenue by 2.4 percent, spurring insurance carriers to increase premiums next year.

Bataille suggested that was a “minimal impact” and said the administration expected more young people to enroll in the coming weeks.

“We do think that will continue to increase,” she said.

House Speaker John Boehner seized on the youth enrollment tally Tuesday and called on the administration to work with Republicans in Congress to eliminate the tax penalty for uninsured Americans who don’t sign up before the deadline. The penalty — $95 or 1 percent of annual income, whichever is greater — will be assessed at tax time next year for anyone who wasn’t insured for at least nine months in 2014.

“The administration won’t tell us how many people have actually paid for a plan or how many were previously uninsured. But what we do know is that young adults — those who the White House repeatedly said are critical — are deciding the health care law is a bad deal,” Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said. “Now, millions stand to be forced to pay a new tax because of this law. Given these dismal enrollment numbers, the president needs to work with Congress to get rid of this year’s individual mandate penalty.”

In Wisconsin, however, some insurance executives are hailing the enrollment progress. Bob DeVita, CEO of Common Ground Health Care Cooperative, said in an interview Tuesday that his group has enrolled 15,000 Wisconsinites so far – that’s 5,000 more than his target.

He said the enrollment, like the statewide and national trends, is skewing older and more female. But he believes that could change by the deadline, although he said what the final result will be on March 31 is unpredictable.

“That’s totally a wild card,” he said.

Correction

A Gannett Washington Bureau story about Wisconsinites signing up for health insurance on the federal exchange included an incorrect estimate for how many state residents would enroll just through the exchange. The Kaiser Family Foundation predicted that 278,000 residents would obtain coverage either through the exchange, Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program. The analysis did not specify how many would enroll through the exchange.